The jockey, who was banned for 12
years by the BHA for not riding mounts on their merits and his
involvement with disgraced owners Maurice Sines and James Crickmore,
performed the Frankie Dettori-style celebration after riding a double at
his local 'Flapping' meeting at Hawick last month.

The BHA ban stops Fairley riding at
official race meetings run under rules but he is free to ride on the
unlicensed circuit where prizes are a few hundred pounds – something his
father Andrew also continues to do.

Fairley, who was sentenced in his absence after failing to answer the BHA charges last year, walked away from a prized job with top trainer Johnston and returned to his native Scotland where he is believed to have been working as a Tree Surgeon.

That's the spirit

A new spirit of co-operation within racing signalled by this week's commercial deal between the BHA and Betfair has also surfaced with this weekend's C4 coverage of the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown.

The bookmaker sponsors of the group one contest were vocally disappointed last year, both with the third-race position of the Eclipse on the card and the fact the parade was cancelled due to time issues.

However, Coral, Sandown and C4 have liaised so that Saturday's race is a more appropriate fifth on the seven-race programme and C4 have extended their programme by 10 minutes to hopefully have time for both the race and reaction if there are any delays to the Eclipse start.

The response of C4 will especially hearten those who are concerned about the channel taking over exclusive coverage of the sport next year.

True colours

The teams for next month's Shergar Cup, where jockeys compete in teams against each other, have been announced this week with Hayley Turner (right), US jockey Chantal Sutherland and Canadian Emma-Jayne Wilson becoming the first all-female jockey team to compete.

Organisers will be hoping for another big, family crowd at Ascot which is inspired as much by the sideshows and post-race concert as the action on the track.

The team concept will always be alien to racing and led to a spin-off that has annoyed trainer Mark Johnston, even though he is a big supporter of the event with his entries. The Middleham trainer has offered some frustrated comments about competitors wearing team silks, as opposed to those of the owner of their mounts.

Johnston wrote in his the July edition of his Kingsley Klarion stable magazine: 'So why then did they introduce team colours, which make it very difficult indeed to distinguish one horse from another?

'As in the case of Racing for Change's recent idea to have a competition for colours based on designs from Fruit Machines, somebody has failed to consider the whole purpose of colours which is to enable viewers to distinguish one competitor form another at a distance.

'It is impossible not to conclude that whoever is responsible for the decision to run with these colours suffers from a desperate lack of understanding of our sport.'

Tattoo watch

Fashion observers were seemingly obsessed with the spread of tattoos on female racegoers at Royal Ascot last month but it will be interesting if there is an increased number of 'painted ladies' at York's Ebor meeting next month, especially as the Knavesmire track has just hosted a Tattoo Fair when an estimated 10,000 visitors attended.